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Friday, September 30, 2016

Iran is set to host the world chess championship, but now the U.S. women’s champion and others are accusing chess tournament officials of not standing up for women’s rights because it has allowed Iran to rule that all female contestants must wear the oppressive Muslim headscarf during their stay in the Muslim country.

Worse, Iran has said that female chess grandmasters who refuse to wear the hijab while in Iran will face arrest!

Wearing the headscarves has been strictly enforced by the “morality police” since 1979. Refusal to do so can result in public reprimands, arrests or fines, the Mail reported.

Fide, the nickname of the World Chess Federation, is now being accused of bowing to pressure from the terrorist exporting nation and not standing up for its female players.

In particular, the U.S. women’s champion, Nazi Paikidze, is attacking Fide as weak-willed.

“It is absolutely unacceptable to host one of the most important women’s tournaments in a venue where, to this day, women are forced to cover up with a hijab,” Paikidze said according to the Daily Mail.

“I understand and respect cultural differences,” she added. “But, failing to comply can lead to imprisonment and women’s rights are being severely restricted in general. It does not feel safe for women from around the world to play here.”

“If the situation remains unchanged, I will most certainly not participate in this event,” the U.S. female champ concluded.

U.S. Women’s Champion Nazi Paikidze

Paikidz isn’t the only chess champ from the west who is balking at Iran’s demands. Former Pan American champion Carla Heredia, from Ecuador, also criticized the tournament.

“No institution, no government, nor a Women’s World Chess Championship should force women to wear or to take out a hijab,” Heredia said. She then added, “This violates all what sports means. Sport should be free of discrimination by sex, religion and sexual orientation.”

Others agreed and a group of the female champions have demanded that Fide address the issue. So far, though, the chess organization has timidly refused to even comment and there has yet been no action on the accusations against it.

NCRI - Amnesty International havehighlighted the recent news that the 16-year prison sentence against Iranian human rights defender Narges Mohammadi, who is critically ill, has been upheld by the Iranian regime’s appeal court.

Their Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Philip Luther, said: “This verdict is yet another cruel and devastating blow to human rights in Iran, which demonstrates the authorities’ utter contempt for justice. Narges Mohammadi is a prominent advocate of human rights and a prisoner of conscience. She should be lauded for her courage not locked in a prison cell for 16 years.”

He added that it is “harsh” and “appalling” that this sentence has been given for human rights work that has been carried out peacefully. He said it is clear that the authorities have “laid bare their intent to silence human rights defenders at all costs”.

Luther said that this sentence is even more shocking because it comes at a time when Iran’s regime is preparing for renewed bilateral dialogue with the EU, and “given that Narges Mohammadi was convicted for her work campaigning against the death penalty and meeting with the former EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs”. He said that this sentencing raises many doubts about Tehran’s commitment to dealing with the EU over human rights issues.

“Narges Mohammadi’s conviction and sentence must be quashed and the authorities must order her immediate and unconditional release. We urge the EU to make these calls, too, and put the heightened repression of human rights defenders in Iran at the heart of their dialogue.”

WASHINGTON – Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign is ready to attack his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, using the infidelities of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, according to lists of talking points prepared for the mogul’s surrogates and obtained by CNN.

In the documents, the idea is developed that Trump “has never treated women the way Hillary Clinton and her husband did when they actively worked to destroy Bill Clinton’s accusers.”

The Democratic campaign did not delay in reacting and on Thursday said in a statement that “as many Republicans have warned, this is a mistake that is going to backfire.”

“After his disastrous debate performance and his sexist attack on a former Miss Universe over her weight, Donald Trump is now trying to deflect by going after Hillary Clinton about her marriage,” Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said on Thursday in a statement.

The mogul admitted on Tuesday in an interview with the Fox cable network that during Monday’s debate he was on the verge of attacking Clinton with her husband’s scandal, but he said “I really eased up because I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.”

He said he decided not to bring up former President Clinton’s infidelities because their daughter Chelsea was in the audience, and he added that he thought he did the right thing.

What almost motivated Trump to air the Clintons’ dirty laundry yet again was the former secretary of state’s criticism of him for his insults of women, which she highlighted by noting his offensive remarks concerning former Venezuelan Miss Universe Alicia Machado, now a U.S. citizen, who won the 1996 pageant, which the magnate directed at the time.

Trump’s son Eric on Wednesday said on Sean Hannity’s radio show that Bill Clinton had been possibly the worst sexist ever, according to Buzzfeed.

“It’s amazing when you hear her talk about sexism and these various claims, which are ridiculous, aside from obviously Bill, her husband, being maybe the worst that’s ever lived,” the younger Trump said.

It remains to be seen whether Trump, under pressure because it is widely considered – and recent voter surveys show – that he lost the first debate and Clinton has gained several points, resorts to using the former president’s romantic escapades to attack his rival.

For the moment, though, Trump has simply issued a warning that he might “hit her harder” in the next presidential debate, scheduled for Oct. 9.

MEXICO CITY – Teaching students in western Mexico’s Michoacan state are holding a police chief hostage, demanding the release of arrested fellow students, authorities said Wednesday.

On Tuesday afternoon, in the indigenous village of Carapan, teaching students took Chilchota municipality police chief Alfredo Lucio Rios Chavez hostage after he approached them as they were setting fire to three vehicles – a passenger bus, a tractor trailer and a pickup truck – and having a confrontation with security forces.

Rios approached the angry students to “try to calm the kids down and they grabbed him as a hostage and took him away,” Chilchota Mayor Mario Silva told Radio Formula.

Earlier on Tuesday, security forces had arrested 49 of the students, who study at the Indigenous Normal School for teacher-trainees in the town of Cheran.

The students have been protesting and stealing vehicles – reportedly more than 100 over the past three months, and burning some of them – to demand automatic job placement upon graduation.

On Tuesday, the students took Rios to the community of Tacuro and then to Turicuaro, where they are currently holding him and where they have their “base” of operations.

The mayor said that he has had no direct communication with the students, but they are speaking directly to the Michoacan Interior Secretariat.

“During the course of the day, we’re going to see about the possibility that our director can be released,” said Silva, citing information he had been given by the state authorities.

In addition, the mayor said that the students had “attacked” Rios and “beat him up a little,” although he was not seriously hurt.

The vehicles the students burned on Tuesday come after they had burned three others – a truck, a pickup truck and a private car – in their protests in the town of Paracho to demand the release of their classmates

The driver of a public bus in Vitoria on Thursday refused to allow a woman on board because she was wearing a Muslim veil which covered her face, the latest flare up in the Basque city over tolerance of Islamic customs.

The driver for the city’s Tuvisa transport service who took decided not to allow the women in a veil that to board his bus has now organised a petition among company colleagues and passengers in a bid to gain support for his stance, according to sources cited by Spanish news agency Europa Press.

Tuvisa has opened an investigation into the incident, while the municipal company’s president has called a meeting with politicians from the city council to inform them of what the ABC newspaper says is the latest in a series of flashpoints relating to rules for the city’s Muslims.

In the summer, Mayor Javier Maroto of the conservative Popular Party imposed rules to prevent women from bathing in public swimming pools wearing Muslim outfits or if they were dressed in ordinary clothing and not just swimming costumes. "The rules at public swimming pools are the same for everyone," the mayor said in June.

"Swimming dressed in all of your clothes and the veil is intolerable."

Maroto is the leading figure behind a PP campaign in the Basque Country to change regional rules governing which families should receive minimum income allowances. The party’s proposal lists requisites such as having been registered as a resident in the region for 10 years and having paid into the social security system, proposals seen by some as discriminatory against immigrants.

The local leader of the Spanish anti-racism organisation SOS Racismo, Fede García, has accused Maroto of "xenophobic opportunism", adding that most immigrants have worked and paid their contributions before, in some cases, finding themselves out of work like millions of Spaniards. “When their subsidies run out, what are they supposed to do? Pack their bags and leave?”

Last year the PP-run city council in Vitoria toughened up laws on commercial premises, a move which led to 45 internet cafés, Chinese-run bargain shops and kebab restaurants receiving sanctions for hygiene problems or failure to have the correct licenses.

Two football hooligans have been detained for allegedly assaulting a pregnant woman wearing a niqab in Barcelona, police said on Thursday, as anti-Islam hate crimes soar in Spain

The woman, who is eight months pregnant, was walking through the centre of the seaside city last week with her husband and two children, and was rebuked by the two ultras because she was wearing the Islamic veil, police said in a statement.

Her husband reacted and was assaulted by the pair, who have not been named but are said by police to have links to the far-right Brigadas Blanquiazules group, which supports the Espanyol football team in Barcelona.

The club banned members of this group from entering its stadium in 2010.

The woman tried to intervene and one of the ultras kicked her in the stomach, police said, adding the two were subsequently detained and have since been accused of hate crime, discrimination and personal injury.

Hospital checks found no damage to either the woman - who has not been named - or her baby, police said.

The assault comes with anti-Islam hate crimes on the rise in Spain.

In April, Mounir Benjelloun, head of the Spanish Federation of Islamic Religious Entities, told AFP 534 anti-Islam incidents were reported in Spain last year, a more than tenfold jump from 2014.

He said these acts of violence increased whenever there was a high-profile extremist incident elsewhere, such as the January 2015 attack against satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, police and a kosher supermarket in Paris.

"We're talking about this case because it has come out into the open," Benjelloun told AFP Thursday.

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

baby died at a Swedish hospital after six failed attempts at vaginal birth before an emergency caesarean section was carried out

The woman arrived at Uppsala University hospital in March this year to give birth to her fourth child. But complications arose during the final stages of labour when the baby would not come out.

Despite the woman's repeated requests for a caesarian section, the midwife engaged in six failed attempts to deliver the baby vaginally, including using a vacuum extractor.

An emergency operation was eventually performed, but the baby had by then been without oxygen for several minutes.

It died days later, according to a report filed to the Health and Social Care Inspectorate by the hospital itself in accordance with Sweden's patient safety laws.

In its report, obtained by Upsala Nya Tidning, the hospital wrote that the midwife had failed to immediately contact a physician after it was discovered that medical equipment in the room did not function properly.

The woman's husband reported the incident to the Inspectorate earlier this year, writing: "It was chaos, the equipment did not work and there was hardly any communication between staff."

A woman has described how she was told to take paracetamol when she phoned a hospital in Ystad, southern Sweden, in pain. Just moments later she gave birth to a baby in the toilet.

The Expressen tabloid reports that the woman, from western Sweden, was 31 weeks' pregnant when she started getting pains in the lower part of her stomach on a visit to southern Sweden to celebrate Easter.

She called a health advice hotline which advised her to go to hospital to rule out urinary infection. The general surgery in Ystad then referred her to the obstetrics and gynecology department which found traces of blood in her urine.

She was given medication for urinary infection and told to make an appointment with her midwife after the weekend, according to a report filed to Sweden's Health and Social Care Inspectorate seen by Expressen.

Later the same evening the woman contacted the hospital again, but a CTG and vaginal ultrasound did not show anything out of the ordinary, so she was sent home once again.

"We get home at 1.30am and I'm in so much pain now that my legs hurt," the woman writes in her report.

Her husband called the hospital again, explaining that his wife was in so much pain that she was unable to speak, but was told that she should take an Alvedon – a Swedish brand of paracetamol-based painkillers.

The woman explains in the report filed to the Health and Social Care Inspectorate that she then threw up and ran to the toilet where she had three contractions, pushed and gave birth to a son in the toilet chair.

"After 28 minutes the ambulances come and we go back to Ystad," she writes.

Monday, September 26, 2016

JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a meeting on Sunday with Donald Trump in New York, during which he thanked the U.S. Republican presidential candidate for his friendship and support of Israel.

Netanyahu’s office said that the meeting, which was held at Trump’s residence in New York, lasted for more than two hours. The Israeli ambassador in the United States Ron Dermer, as well as Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, took part in the meeting.

According to a statement released by the prime minister’s office “Netanyahu presented Israel’s positions on regional issues related to Israel’s security and efforts to achieve peace and stability.”

“Prime Minister thanked Mr. Trump for his friendship and support of Israel,” the statement added.

Netanyahu is also scheduled to meet Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton later Sunday

WASHINGTON – Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said he might invite Gennifer Flowers to the nationally televised debate he will have with his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton early this coming week.

Flowers claimed in 1992 that she and Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, who at the time was running for president, had had a romantic relationship in the 1970s.

The mogul’s campaign director, Kellyanne Conway, said Sunday on CNN that the possibility that Flowers might be in the debate audience was suggested so that Hillary Clinton knows that the two candidates may invite people whose presence might adversely affect their opponent to the Monday contest at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York.

However, she told CNN, “We have not invited (Flowers) formally, and we do not expect her to be there as a guest of the Trump campaign.”

Trump had tweeted on Saturday that he might invite Flowers after billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner, harsh Trump critic and strong Clinton supporter, Mark Cuban, said on his Twitter account that Clinton’s campaign had invited him to attend the debate and sit in the front row, ostensibly to rattle the mogul.

“If dopey Mark Cuban of failed Benefactor fame wants to sit in the front row, perhaps I will put Gennifer Flowers right alongside of him!” Trump had tweeted, referring to Cuban’s now-cancelled television reality show “The Benefactor.”

The alleged former lover of President Clinton had quickly responded: “Hi Donald. You know I’m in your corner and will definitely be at the debate.”

Hillary Clinton’s campaign later issued a statement saying that the candidate “plans on using the debate to discuss the issues that make a difference in people’s lives.”

“It’s not surprising that Donald Trump has chosen a different path,” added the campaign spokeswoman, Jennifer Palmieri.

Clinton and Trump are virtually tied just prior to Monday’s debate, according to a new national voter survey published Sunday by The Washington Post and ABC News.

It is expected that the Monday night debate will be one of the most heavily watched television events in history with eight out of 10 voters saying they plan to tune in, according to the Washington Post poll.

Of those polled, 44 percent say they expect Clinton to “win” the debate and 34 percent think that Trump will be victorious.

The muskox gets its name from the strong smell the male members of the species omit during the summer mating season in an effort to attract females.

But it seems one Swedish bull’s aroma as well as his radar aren't quite up to scratch. The animal, which has been sighted in recent days in the vicinity of Lillhärdal, Jämtland in western Sweden, has apparently wandered down the wrong road in his attempts to find a mate.

“He is looking for ladies and there are none of those in Lillhärdal, so he’s expected to move on,” Claes Ahlström, a communications officer at Jämtland County, told radio station P4.

MEXICO CITY – Hundreds of Haitians hoping to cross into the United States are stuck in Tijuana, a border city in northwestern Mexico, after making the trek north from Brazil, where their dreams of a better life were dashed by an economic downturn.

Thousands of Haitians fled their homeland following the 2010 earthquake and were welcomed in Brazil, which offered them visas on humanitarian grounds.

The 2014 World Cup and this year’s Summer Olympic Games provided opportunities for the Haitians to work in construction, restaurants and the cleaning industry.

Some of the emigrants even had children in Brazil, whose economy has been battered by a deep recession, leaving them without jobs and struggling once again to survive.

The Haitians turned their sights north to the United States, but they now find themselves marooned in Tijuana, located in Mexico’s Baja California state near San Diego, California.

U.S. authorities had been allowing about 100 migrants per day to apply for entry via Tijuana, but Washington changed its policy last week.

The Obama administration said last Thursday that Haitians who crossed into the United States illegally now face deportation to their homeland.

Some 5,000 Haitians have been allowed to enter the United States via Mexico so far this year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said.

Another woman, Charlotte Bech, was overcome by emotion and gave a tearful interview to the TV station.

“They've been through so much and then they're told that they are so undesirable that we had to make a spray to use on them. One thing is the opinion that we don’t have the capacity [for refugees] or an opinion that some of them might not fit in to our culture. But to make a joke out of it is not okay,” Charlotte Bech of Silkeborg said.

Danish nationalists hand out cans of 'refugee spray'

Spanish police have arrested two men accused of plotting to carry out an Isis-inspired attack in Europe.

Spain’s interior ministry said that had arrested two men of Moroccan origin who were working together on plans to carry out a terrorist attack.

One of the men had recently travelled to Turkey in an attempt to cross the border into Syria to join the so-called Islamic State in order to receive training before returning to Europe to carry out an attack.

Unlike fully grown fighting bulls, the young calves can inflict little harm on the ‘bullfighters’.

The video was released on Tuesday as part of the latest campaign by Pacma, the animal welfare party, which calls for Spain to put an end to bullfighting.

"I’ve never seen such cruelty inflicted on an animal in the name of fun," said Silvia Barquero, the president of Pacma.

"Thousands of popular taurine festivals, such as that of Valmojado, are tainting the image of Spain, converting it into a symbol of animal cruelty across Europe," Pacma said in its petition. "It’s time to end this anachronism."

Justice officials say the 29-year-old Turkish biker was nearing the end of a prison sentence at Hirtenberg jail in Lower Austria, and had been granted unsupervised day release.

A police unit tried to stop the 29-year-old at around 6pm in Floridsdorf when they noticed he was riding an unlicensed motorbike. He refused to pull over and they gave chase, calling for reinforcements.

As the biker headed towards Strebersdorf a police officer who was manning a pedestrian crossing to make sure schoolchildren could cross safely tried to flag him down and stepped into the road.

After initially slowing down, the biker then increased his speed, knocking the officer down and falling off the bike himself. The police officer was taken to hospital by helicopter and is in a critical condition. The motorcyclist was also injured and is being treated in hospital but police say they will question him on Friday.

Police spokesman Roman Hahslinger said the man was carrying his younger brother’s identity papers and was serving a six year sentence for drug and property crimes.

Brigadier Alfred Steinacher, director of Hirtenberg prison, said the man was not considered a risk to the public and had been granted day release as a reward for good behaviour. He left prison on Thursday morning and was due back on Friday morning, by 10am. Steinacher said the man had recently tested clean for drugs.

A spokesman for the central government's representative in the eastern Valencia region where the private Valdeserrillas reserve is located said the animal had been decapitated after death.

"Either it died of a natural death, or it was poisoned before being decapitated by an axe."

The European bison, the continent's largest wild land mammal, once roamed across most of the continent but it was severely hunted until it finally became extinct in the wild in 1927, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

Neither of the dead animals had any bullet wounds, and reserve spokesman Rodolfo Navarro told AFP earlier this week he thought that Sauron might have been poisoned and decapitated by hunters who wanted its head as "a trophy".

At the time, another three animals belonging to the same herd were missing, and staff feared they could have been sick or frightened and hiding.

Rape victim stabs Syrian asylum seeker

A 45-year-old Moroccan asylum seeker has been arrested for attempted murder in Vienna after stabbing a 27-year-old Syrian man who he claims drugged and raped him

Police are now investigating whether the Moroccan was raped on Sunday in the Ottakring district, as he claims, and if the Syrian man was involved.

The Moroccan is in police custody and the 27-year-old Syrian is in hospital, where he’s being treated for serious injuries.

Both men are asylum seekers who live in accommodation in the Favoriten area. Originally, the 45-year-old told the authorities he was 35 years old and came from Syria. Police spokesman Thomas Keiblinger said it was likely he had lied as he thought he’d have a better chance at being granted asylum if he was believed to be from war-torn Syria.

Keiblinger said the man had refused to go into much detail about his rape ordeal, saying he would save his story for the judge.

He was treated in hospital on Sunday lunchtime for injuries that suggested he had been assaulted. He told doctors he had been raped by two men in Ottakring.

He said he had gone with them to an apartment where they had offered him a glass of lemonade, and shortly after drinking it he began to feel unwell and lost consciousness. He says that this is when the two men raped him.

When he woke up he was in pain and went to a hospital, where doctors contacted the police after hearing his story.

After being released from hospital he went back to his accommodation in Favoriten, and 12 hours later stabbed the Syrian man with a pocket knife in the chest. Witnesses said the men had not fought before the attack, and that the Moroccan had not said anything prior to the stabbing.

Keiblinger said the Syrian had been able to talk to police from his hospital bed, but that he claimed he had no idea why the Moroccan had attacked him and he denied having raped the man.

The Moroccan man’s blood will be tested to see if he was given a date rape drug and police are trying to locate the apartment where he said the assault took place. Other asylum seekers who live in the Favoriten home told police that they believe he has psychological problems.

Two priests were kidnapped and killed in the Mexican state of Veracruz, raising the death toll of priests murdered in Mexico to 14 in less than four years.

Veracruz state attorney general Luis Angel Bravo Contreras told reporters Sept. 20 that the "victims and the victimizers knew each other" and added that the attack was "not a kidnapping."

"They were together, having a few drinks, the gathering broke down due to alcohol and turned violent," he said.

Catholic officials in Veracruz rejected the explanation, calling it "an easy out" and saying it ignored the reality of a state notorious for crime and corruption.

"We are hoping for more professional and careful inquiry, because this declaration the prosecutor is giving generates more doubts than responses to the issue of the murder of these two priests," said Fr. Jose Manuel Suazo Reyes, spokesman for the Xalapa archdiocese. "It surprises us how quickly they've concluded an investigation that requires more time and care."

Explore Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation on the family with our free study guide.

Fr. Alejo Nabor Jimenez Juarez and Fr. Jose Alfredo Juarez de la Cruz were dragged at gunpoint out of Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Poza Rica, a Gulf Coast oil city consumed by crime in recent years, the Papantla diocese confirmed in a statement. Media reported the men were found Sept. 19, one day after their abduction, along the side of a highway with their hands and feet bound. They were beaten and had gunshot wounds, according to media reports.

A driver employed by the parish also was abducted, Mexican media reported, but was found unharmed.

State officials said Sept. 20 that five men participated in the abductions and one of the suspect's identities was known. Robbery of a church building fund was cited as a motive, Veracruz media outlet Plumas Libres reported.

"In these moments of pain, impotence and tragedy provoked by violence, we raise our prayers to the heavens for the eternal rest of our brothers and implore to the Lord the conversion of the aggressors. Of the authorities, we await the clarification of the acts and the application of those responsible," the Mexican bishops' conference said in a statement.

Violence has struck Veracruz clergy previously. In 2013, two priests in the Tuxpan diocese were murdered in their parish.

CAIRO – At least 162 people died when a boat carrying hundreds of migrants capsized in the Mediterranean, the Egyptian Health Ministry said Friday.

Six of the travelers rescued alive following Wednesday’s accident remain hospitalized, the ministry said in a statement.

The boat was carrying between 400 and 600 migrants when it capsized after setting out from a point somewhere between Rashid and Baltim, in the province of Al Bahira.

The provincial governor, Mohamed Sultan, called for search operations to continue and for the legal process of returning victims’ bodies to families be sped up.

So far, 164 migrants have been rescued alive, among them 111 Egyptians, 26 Sudanese, 13 Eritreans, two Somalis, one Syrian and one Ethiopian, according to information released by the International Organization for Migration.

Health Ministry spokesman Khalid Mujahid told EFE that bodies recovered from the site are brought to the port of Bugas Rashi.

If identification documents are found on the body, the family is notified, while bodies without documents are taken to hospitals for identification, Mujahid said.

UNITED NATIONS – Efforts by the United States and Russia to resuscitate a Syrian cease-fire that collapsed after seven days remained stalled on Friday.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly a day after both took part here in an acrimonious session of the International Syria Support Group.

“We exchanged some ideas and we had a little bit of progress. We’re evaluating some mutual ideas in a constructive way,” Kerry said of his talks Friday with Russia’s top diplomat.

Both Washington and Moscow say the cease-fire accord Kerry and Lavrov announced two weeks ago in Geneva offers the only realistic chance for progress toward ending a conflict that has claimed more than 400,000 lives since the spring of 2011.

But the atmosphere between the two great powers has grown frosty following a U.S. airstrike last weekend that killed scores of Syrian government troops – attributed by Washington to a mistake – and Monday’s attack on a Syrian Red Crescent aid convoy, which left at least 20 dead.

The U.S. accuses Russia of bombing the convoy. The Russians deny any involvement and demand a “thorough and impartial” investigation.

Kerry said this week that restoring the shattered truce will require a major gesture on the part of the Syrian government and its allies, demanding the establishment of a no-fly zone over areas controlled by the opposition.

In an address Friday to the General Assembly, Lavrov made it clear that Russia will not accede to Kerry’s demand, insisting instead on the responsibility of the U.S. and it allies to separate “so-called moderate opposition from terrorists.”

Under the plan adopted in Geneva, the cease-fire was supposed to lead to cooperation between the U.S. and Russia in mounting coordinated airstrikes against terrorist groups such as Islamic State and the al-Nusra Front.

The prerequisite for the joint strikes was disentangling the Western-backed rebels from the terrorists.

WASHINGTON – The Republican senator previously in the running for his party’s presidential nomination, Ted Cruz, back-pedaled Friday from his rejection of Donald Trump as his party’s presidential candidate and stated that he will cast his vote for the magnate next November.

Cruz was a leading figure in one of the most controversial moments of the Republican National Convention last July in Cleveland, Ohio, when the multimillionaire was officially nominated for the presidential race and the senator in his speech withheld his support for Trump.

The Republican nominee was visibly annoyed with the senator, his toughest rival in the primaries, and countered by saying “I don’t want his endorsement,” and “if he gives it, I will not accept it.”

“This election is unlike any other in our nation’s history. Like many other voters, I have struggled to determine the right course of action in this general election,” Cruz said Friday on his Facebook page.

“In Cleveland, I urged voters, ‘please, don’t stay home in November. Stand, and speak, and vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket whom you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution,’” he recalled

“After many months of careful consideration, of prayer and searching my own conscience, I have decided that on Election Day, I will vote for the Republican nominee, Donald Trump,” the senator said in a long message to voters.

Cruz said he has taken that decision for two reasons: first, because last year he promised to support whatever Republican candidate was elected; and second, though he has “areas of significant disagreement” with Trump, “by any measure Hillary Clinton is wholly unacceptable.”

Trump replied that “I am greatly honored by the endorsement of Senator Cruz. We have fought the battle and he was a tough and brilliant opponent.”

The backing by Cruz, a symbol of the Tea Party and of the extreme right wing of the Republican Party, comes at less than two months before the country’s presidential and legislative elections.

Saturday, September 17, 2016

The attack happened at 13:00 p.m. local time (08:30 a.m. GMT) at the Gul Muhammad mosque in a tribal area in the northwest of the country, local security official Gulab Khan said.

More than 200 people were participating in Friday afternoon prayers at a place of worship at the time of the attack, and it was feared that there could be more victims, said Khan.

The injured were taken to hospitals in the area, which is mountainous and has bad roads, he said, adding that an investigation into the attack had begun.

The attack came one day after Eid al-Adha (The Feast of the Sacrifice) ended in the Muslim country.

Two police officers died and four were injured on Tuesday on the first day of the feast in an explosion in Quetta, hours after a failed suicide attack against a Shiite mosque in the south of the country.

Despite such incidents, Pakistan has seen a fall in the number of terrorist attacks, which the government and army attribute to a military operation that was launched in June 2014 in the northwest of the country against the Taliban.

Thursday, September 15, 2016

(CNSNews.com) Sept. 14, 2016 – Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy has a message for the U.S. Navy: Go to the Bay of Pigs; the Persian Gulf is our home.

Iran flexes muscles again ?

A banner bearing words to that effect was draped on the side of a new, Iranian-built warship unveiled in the port of Bushehr on Tuesday, at a time when the Pentagon has reported a jump in the number of Iranian provocations in one of the world’s most important waterways.“This ship increases the deterrent power of Iran and will have an effect on the calculations of the enemy – particularly America,” Iranian media quoted Fadavi as saying.“There is no reason for the presence of the U.S. in the Persian Gulf and we have always regarded and will regard it as a factor behind insecurity and evil acts,” he said, adding that the U.S. must leave the waterway.The IRGC’s second-in-command, Brig. Gen. Hussein Salami, said the IRGC Navy was determined to confront Iran’s enemies as long as they hatch plots against Iran and against Muslims.The “Bay of Pigs” reference on the banner derives from a taunting speech by supreme leader Khamenei last May, after a resolution was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives warning that Iranian military activities were undermining stability in the Persian Gulf.“The Persian Gulf is our home,” Khamenei said at the time. “They come here from the other side of the world to perform a military exercise? Well, look the other way, towards the Bay of Pigs,” he said.In case the reference was lost on anyone, an official Khamenei website explained that the supreme leader was being “ironic.”“It indicates U.S. military weakness that stems from their failed operation in the ‘Bay of Pigs’ in Cuba,” the website added, citing the failed U.S.-backed invasion by anti-Castro exiles in 1961.The resolution Khamenei was responding to, introduced by Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), cited the detention in the Gulf last January of 10 U.S. Navy sailors and two small patrol vessels, as well as subsequent incidents of Iranian warplanes flying in close proximity to U.S. Navy ships.Since then, the number of incidents in the area has increased sharply.“Since January 2016, surface elements from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGC-N) have harassed U.S. naval vessels in the Gulf thirty times, 50 percent more than during the same period last year,” U.S. Navy Commander Jeremy Vaughan wrote in an article for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy this week.“In each case, the Iranian vessel or vessels approached within weapons range. On at least three occasions, they closed to a distance that could make a collision more likely or could render U.S. ships nearly defenseless to a boat packed with explosive charges,” Vaughan said.Last Tuesday, a Pentagon spokesman said seven IRGC fast-attack boats had approached the USS Firebolt, a Cyclone-class patrol ship operating in international waters, in an “unsafe and unprofessional” manner. The Iranian boats had their machine guns uncovered and manned, although not trained on the U.S. vessel.Earlier incidents included one late last month in which a Iranian vessel approached two U.S. Navy ships. Crew on the USS Squall, also a Cyclone-class patrol ship, fired three warning shots into the water.U.S. Central Command commander Gen. Joe Votel, said during a Pentagon press briefing a few days later that the main concern about the Iranian provocations was “miscalculation.”“I am concerned about rogue commanders, rogue Iranian Quds force naval commanders who are operating in a provocative manner and are trying to test us,” he said.Votel said that in each case the U.S. sailors involved “have made very, very good decisions, but ultimately if they continue to test us we’re going to respond and we’re going to protect ourselves and our partners.”